Sunday, February 15, 2015

Valentine's Day!!! (Better Late Than Never)

Well, Valentine's Day has come and gone. Hope that your day was like mine and filled with boundless love and romance; a long walk on the beach, candlelit dinner, rose petal path leading to a jacuzzi tub topped with your favorite scented oil, that one bottle of wine that you've been saving for a special occasion, chocolate fondue fountain with an assortment of goodies for dipping, snuggling by the fireplace with romantical R&B crooning in the background and endless stares into the eyes of the love of your life...come to think of it, that just describes a normal weekend around here. I'm such a lucky guy!

But of course, Valentine's Day means Valentine's Day card. I know it's traditional to blog about and share your projects BEFORE any given holiday so that you can inspire ideas and creativity in others, but I'm pretty sure that most of you who are reading this don't need to worry about your blog being read by your Valentine and all of her friends. Since I thrive on the element of surprise, I had to save my Valentine's post for today. I've been thinking, though, and I think that next year I may just create a "decoy" project so that I'll have something to blog about AND something to surprise her with. Good idea? Now that I'm thinking about it, I'll need a decoy for Mother's Day, too. Heck, since I'm fairly new to this whole paper crafting world, are there any other Holiday card exchanges that I need to be aware of? I don't want to miss anything...

Anyway, back to Valentine's Day. You know how when you enter into a relationship with someone, there are certain pressures that you feel as the relationship develops? At least for me, that's how it's been. Maybe it's a guy thing. Mostly the pressures come with the significant Firsts: First Date, First Kiss, First Anniversary, First Time that...um..we...um..Danced ;-), and of course the staple of all new relationships, the First Valentine's Day. My wife and have been together for 13 Valentine's Days now. But this year I felt the pressure all over again. It was Stampin' Stud's First Valentine's Day. It really hit me about a week ago. This was my first card that I had to make that had actual parameters. Before, I was just inspired by little piles of scraps and a loose stamp here and there, but this time I had 2 problems:

1. There was an expectation. I had to make a Love card and it had to be suitable to forever dwell in Paper Paradise. I couldn't make a birthday card, or a "Just Because" card, or anything else. It could be romantic, sexy, or cute, but I was making it for Somebody Special and for a Special Occasion.

2. I had to make it in secret. I don't mean that I had to sneak out in the middle of the night, or smuggle stamps to work and make cards under my desk. It's just that I usually have some assistance navigating around since I'm not that familiar with all of the crafting stuff that has accumulated over the years and where it all can be found. I have relied on asking "do we have ____ ink" or "where is the _____ paper" and magically these items appear on my work station. I always thought that I was just spoiled (and I am), but now I think that maybe she just realized that there was no way that I could have found anything by myself and there's no way that she could have described where to look. And let's just say that my wife and I are on the opposite ends of the organizational spectrum. So when I had an idea to punch out some hearts and I didn't want her to know, it wasn't as simple and going to the punch section and finding the heart. It was more like checking here, then checking there, then asking the kids, then digging through a few piles of stuff and settling with whatever turned up. But I'm going to stop talking about that before I get in any more trouble (I'm sure you get the idea). So in order to maintain the element of surprise, I had to fend for myself.

So here's how it all turned out:

**That's a Sentimental Staple in the bottom corner of the card (my Baby LOVES her staples!!)

Isn't he totes adorbs! (Lol)

I had the idea for the faux paper bag when I was doing the last minute grocery run for our supper one night. I custom made the bag to fit a jewelry box and the tissue happened to accent it perfectly. I started out wanting to do some type of tag for the sentiment, but I was struggling to get the layout right so I went with a banner approach. Everything else just fell into place after that. Well, thanks for allowing me to share our V-Day with you. I was going to give a "shout out" to those people that may be suffering from Valentinesday-no-likey (you know, the ones that say that Valentine's Day isn't a real Holiday - just a commercial gimmick for Hallmark and the florists to take advantage) but I figured that they wouldn't have even started reading this post anyway, let alone have gotten past the sappiness of the first paragraph. But on the off chance that any of you have set aside your contempt to make it this far, just know that you can "stick it to the man" by supporting your local artisan and buying a handmade card, or better yet go to the link and get the supplies to express your unique self like no one else ever could!

That's all for now. See you in a few days. Let me know in the comments if there is a type of project that you would like to see or a product that you'd like featured. I'm always open to a challenge and it's a lot easier than digging through piles to come up with something on my own...